State Moves To Criminalize Screen Time for Kids, Parents to Face $20K Fine for Violation

Should Colorado legislators get their way, smartphones and other electronic devices capable of connecting to the Internet would be verboten for kids under the age of 13 — and parents could face up to $20,000 in fines for violating the proposed law.

Intended “to make children free,” Initiative 29 is the brainchild of Parents Against Underage Smartphones (PAUS), a group of concerned parents whose mission statement includes ending “the insane practice of giving children smartphones”; but — while the spirit of the proposed law might be considered a laudable attempt to reconnect kids with nature — in actuality, its Nanny State overtones trump the unabashed appeal to emotion.

If successful in Colorado’s Legislature, the proposed strictures governing children’s use of Internet-connected devices will inculcate parents as de facto agents of the U.S. Police State in holding them accountable for kids’ screen time through an inexcusable, untenable quandary — shared in part with cell phone and electronics retailers.

Indeed, Initiative 29 requires store owners “verbally inquire about the age of the intended primary owner of the smartphone” — a mandated interrogation conditional to the voluntary exchange of goods for payment will undeniably turn parents who feel the question none of the State’s business into potential liars and, thus, criminals.

PAUS president and founder Dr. Timothy Farnum grew disheartened at the deleterious effects on his own children, which, he surmised, stemmed from their constant use of cell phones and forays into the sometimes wild Internet.

“They would get the phone and lock themselves in their room and change who they were,” lamented Farnum, board-certified anesthesiologist, to The Coloradan. “They go from being outgoing, energetic, interested in the world and happy, to reclusive . . . They want to spend all their time in their room. They lose interest in outside activities.”

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“(With smartphones), the internet is always begging for your attention,” he added. “The apps are all designed to addict you. … For children, it’s not a good thing.”

However, what Farnum and the initiative’s supporters seemingly fail to grasp is the inordinate overreach by a State so invasive and burdened by excessive law, Big Brother already commands a seat at every family’s dinner table. To additionally mandate retailer interrogation and parental restriction, to boot, not only robs parents of the right to raise children how they see fit, it veritably secures the State as a coercive, fine-imposing babysitter.

“Frankly, I think it should remain a family matter,” asserted Senator John Kefalas, noting the commendable motive behind the legislation does not negate its boundary-trampling reach into our private lives. “I know there have been different proposals out there regarding the internet and putting filters on websites that might put kids at risk. I think ultimately, this comes down to parents … making sure their kids are not putting themselves at risk.”

Kefalas speaks to an increased dependence on government to step in where parents may fall short — Farnum’s proposal clears guardians of inherent responsibility for children’s activities and development, instead placing the onus on store owners to perform the tasks of, in essence, State spies — all at the barrel of a weighty financial gun.

Of PAUS, Salon notes,

“On their website, the group points to pediatricians who recommend limiting handheld screen time for kids and an article about Bill Gates’ thoughts on adolescent development and smart phones. They also have a YouTube embed of a Louis C.K. bit about cell phones.

“Among pictures of falling rain, sunflowers, crowds and the random image of Mel Gibson in ‘Braveheart,’ PAUS lays out its argument on their website: the internet is a dangerous place for children.

“PAUS explains, without sourcing much of their information, that the ‘damage begins in the cradle,’ citing parental negligence an overflow of electronic stimulation as the cause for future ‘physical damage’ and ‘stunted social, emotional, and cognitive development.’ Additionally, the group pins pornography and a ‘lack of meaningful connections in a digital society’ as reasons for higher rates of suicide in young girls from ages 10-14.”

To reiterate, the group’s goals might bubble from a place of concern for children’s wellbeing and an apathy becoming entrenched in society that could facilely evince its peril — but, to place a burden of financial culpability as steep as $20,000 after a single verbal warning for 13-and-unders’ use of electronic devices unduly penalizes their access to an entire planet’s wealth of online information.

In fact, the positive benefits reaped in youth having Internet access at the ready comprise a damning counter-narrative to Initiative 29’s foisting of any damaging effects onto the backs of guardians and business owners, who might otherwise engage in a voluntary exchange on their terms.

As Greg Pulscher points out for FEE, “Children’s inactivity is a major rallying cry for the advocates of the initiative. However, smartphones are not the cause of this idleness, smartphones are the symptom. Decades of regulations and cultural norms are treating children as delicate flowers which leads to these unintended consequences.”

Notably, educational psychologist Dr. Peter Gray observes in Free to Learn,

“Surveys of game players in the general population, indicate that kids who are free to play outdoors as well as with video games usually, over time, choose a balance between the two […]

“Video-game play appears to compete much more with television watching than with outdoor play for children’s free time.”

Further, Initiative 29 and PAUS fail to account for an interminable list of reasons parents might provide children with cell phones and other smart devices beyond the simple pleasures of arguably addicting games and apps — whether for safety while alone, purely for portable connectivity to their guardians, or security in ability to summon necessary emergency services — kids’ possession of Internet-ready devices can encompass virtually any sound justification.

None of which deserve any additional excuses by the State to intervene in our private lives.

As with nearly any legislation, examining a slurry of negative ramifications expeditiously destroys any possible positives — particularly in the context of an invasive government, which seems intent only on watching our every move.

Indeed, the Nanny State’s onerous presence in children’s lives as they learn, grow, explore, and adapt to the modern digital world, is far more inclined than any amount of screen time to stunt natural curiosity, foster ambivalence, and strew resentment — particularly if parents are forced to dole out tens of thousands for the ‘crime.’

After all, unless a communist regime usurps power, it is the job of parents, not the State, and certainly not retailers, to see children prepared for the perils of adulthood — whether or not that preparation includes responsible use of the Internet.

Mainstream Media Now Advocating ‘All Citizens’ Spend Time in Prison as ‘Service’ to Country

Corporate media achieved a new level of absurdity last week, when Jesse Ball, writing for the Los Angeles Times, suggested every American be required to spend a stint behind bars every ten years as a veritable guarantee to improve conditions of incarceration in the United States.

In the piece titled, “Everyone should go to jail, say, once every ten years,” Ball writes,

“A notable demand that is made upon the citizens of the United States of America is that of jury duty. Although many despise, hate and avoid it, there is a general sense that the task is necessary. We believe a society is only just if everyone shares in the apportionment of guilt.

“To this demand of jury duty, I would like to add another, and in the same spirit. I propose that all citizens of the United States of America should serve a brief sentence of incarceration in our maximum-security penitentiaries. This service, which would occur for each person once in a decade, would help ensure that the quality of life within our prisons is sufficient for the keeping of human beings.”

Without foreknowledge on length of stay and other details, citizens would languish behind the same bars as convicted criminals under Ball’s proposal — albeit in a section separated from offenders, assumedly not to confuse jailers and inmates, or endanger anyone serving ‘incarceration duty.’

But Ball misses the point — feeding the elephant in the room of overcriminalization of daily life, excessive laws, and, worst by far of all, the normalization of incarceration as conditional to the American way of life — lecturing all of us to walk a mile in the shoes of the convicted rather than declaring the brazen failures of the Injustice System evidence enough, itself, for dismantling the whole dysfunctional mess.

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After all, according to the Prison Policy Institute, the United States now cages some 2.3 million of its roughly 326.5 million total people — the largest per capita incarcerated persons of any nation on the entire planet.

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An interplanetary traveler would logically conclude it a prison nation — or, at least, one astonishingly rife with thugs, murderers, thieves, and worse.

Even the more law-and-order, authoritarian among us could see the flaws evident in a system claiming freedom, while locking away proportionally more than even the dictatorial fascist regimes our troops putatively combat.

While undoubtedly posited from a place of compassion as a plea for ethics in imprisonment, Ball’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek proposal unfortunately evinces the frequency with which Band-aids are applied as a fix for gaping structural flaws which should otherwise condemn the system to demolishment.

But, worst of all, this proposition capriciously normalizes the American Incarceration State.

Consider how those 2.3 million souls wound up stuffed into the cramped confines of the nation’s myriad federal, state, and local facilities; or, worse — judging by a voluminous body of anecdotal accounts — one of the altogether notorious prisons-for-profit, managed by private corporations intent only on thrift in housing its human commodities to save the State some pennies.

Most of the convicted behind bars have committed nonviolent crime — but moralizing on personal vice and legislation enacted sanctimoniously against substances have exploded the nation’s prison population to alarming proportions.

A court or jury decision of guilt in no way can be characterized on par with ‘laws’ governing ethics and human rights — for, if a candid observation of inmate records were ventured, a sweeping sum could be said to have landed in prison by violating the State’s prohibition on the cannabis plant.

And not violently so.

Forgetting for a moment ‘the law is the law,’ to describe a society as just, which chooses to not only cement unjust ideas into law, but imprison violators of aberrant legislation — particularly in cases of medicinal use — must be the pinnacle of hypocritical pomposity, if not the telltale heart of a dying empire.

Sure, forcing (on penalty of prison?!) yet more behind bars to prove how base the conditions behind bars might actually assist the vocal calling to improve conditions behind bars, but if so many have been locked there for reasons only justifiable for the violation interned in the print of legal tomes, the plan is an exercise in pure futility.

Unless it simply normalizes prison life as a veritable inevitability — might as well prepare for the eventuality some offensive chunk of life will be wasted rotting between the torrid walls of a prison cell.

The irony, palpable.

No, we do not need to send the relatively innocent to prison to endure torturously foul food and varying degrees of inhospitability to prove locking people in cages does nothing to curb crime — indeed, the opposite is arguably true.

It’s the system, broken — not people’s compassion.

Juries convict based on flawed evidence, evidence omitted by technicality, and an embarrassing list of other inexcusable conditions accumulated on the books over centuries — and more laws and regulations find their way to the ledger every day.

They’re creating additional ways to make you a criminal — so, in that sense, Ball might be onto something.

‘Get ready for prison, dear young people, by the time you’re an adult, there won’t be a thing you can do without somehow breaking the law,’ the writer unintentionally asserts between the lines.

“I wonder,” Ball continues, “once all you citizens of the United States are passing in and out of prison on a regular basis, will the conditions there not seem singularly urgent? Just picture congressmen, priests, stock traders, truck drivers, people of every faith, color, description, all for once sharing in something.”

Sharing in the memory of peering out from inside prison walls isn’t conducive to solving the issue of mass incarceration.

Scrapping unjust, unethical, amoral, and otherwise ludicrous laws governing every conceivable aspect of daily life, however, is.

WATCH: Mom Charged with 4 Misdemeanors, Felony for Telling a Cop He Did a Bad Job

Miami, FL — Kristy Hernandez, like any good parent, only wanted to take her son to school in a timely manner, but an average trip to Ben Sheppard Elementary School quickly turned into a nightmare — thanks to, of all people, a hero cop.

Hernandez’ son, Brandon, has autism — his myriad struggles with the developmental disorder forced the young mother to leave her job as a nurse in order to care for him — and after dropping her other son at school, she would ordinarily do just that.

Officer Ismael Castilla, however, didn’t have any parents’ everyday lives in mind when he pulled over a parent outside the school — blocking the exit and preventing anyone from leaving for over 20 minutes — no matter what obligations would have been waiting for them.

Hernandez told 7News Miami the officer was “Blocking the exit, not allowing anyone to get out.”

Irate at the delay preventing her from attending to Brandon, Hernandez pulled out her cell phone to record the cop when parents were finally able to begin exiting again — and she had no intention of holding back her anger when driving by.

That brief interaction, born of justifiable frustration toward the inconsiderate ticketing of another parent (considering the officer could have performed the stop and ticketed the driver on the road outside, preventing the ensuing traffic tangle) was captured by a small dash cam mounted in her vehicle:

“The students are late to school because of you,” Hernandez hollered out her window. “I’m going to be sending this to your supervisor, by the way, sir.”

Apparently, that his problematic vehicle stop could soon also be a disciplinary problem at his job, was more than Castilla could handle. Hernandez shortly heard police sirens and saw the authoritarian officer flip on his lights — she was being stopped in the same school driveway.

But she had no idea the extent of Castilla’s vengeful and unnecessary wrath.

Hernandez tells the Free Thought Project via Facebook that “this cop everyday blocks school traffic to give tickets. So I, along with other parents, decided to record it. He noticed me recording and as soon as I turned the corner he turned with his lights still on, so at first I didn’t know he was stopping me.”

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But that is exactly what happened.

“What are you stopping me for? You’re blocking traffic,” Hernandez implored.

“I’m pulling you over because you have an obstruction of your license plate,” the officer replied.

With her car at the mechanic’s shop, Hernandez had driven her father’s car to drop Brandon off at school — but the officer claimed he would be citing her because the “MyFlorida.com” portion at the top of the tag wasn’t visible.

Aware of the cop’s unveiled hostility, Hernandez focused the small dashboard-mounted camera on her interaction with Castilla; and what happened next to the mother who had never had troubles with the law would make any reasonable person’s blood boil.

“I’ve never been on the wrong side of the law,” the mother explained, “so it’s scary for me.”

Castilla brought the full weight of nit-picky, superfluous law against the already upset mother — issuing an inordinate number of citations for the brief traffic stop — itself birthed of the arrogant cop’s refusal to take responsibility for actions he could have performed differently.

“And so he had those five citations to give me,” she told 7News.

“Five?” reporter Patrick Fraser repeated incredulously.

“Five citations.”

In addition to not displaying her state’s website plug on her father’s vehicle’s license plates, Hernandez received tickets for failing to show Castilla registration and proof of insurance — both of which she says were in the car — as well as for the dash cam.

“It’s a small dash-cam,” Hernandez lamented. “He said it was obstructing my view.”

Far worse than a pile of minor, if costly, citations, Castilla’s last order of business with mother — who only wanted to drop off her kid at school and go home — could make Hernandez a felon.

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“He said I fled and eluded the police officer.”

As 7News explains, “When Kristy pulled over on school property, the officer’s car was left in the road, so she pulled up a few feet to give him space to park, and that’s what got her charged with a felony for fleeing and eluding.

“By then, Brandon was crying, Kristy was hysterical, and another school police officer showed up.”

Through tears, Hernandez attempted to negotiate with the second officer on the scene — to no avail.

She now has four tickets and — defying common decency, reason, and rationale — has been charged with a felony.

Legal expert Howard Finkelstein told 7News Castilla’s gratuitous stop constitutes an extreme departure from the ethical — and isn’t even legal. Not holding back, the expert asserted,

“This is an abuse of power. Legally, Kristy can say she does not like the way the officer is doing his job, but he cannot retaliate and charge her with a felony. And by the way, he wrote the felony charge incorrectly, and it’s not valid at all. As for the other four citations, a judge will see what happened here and throw them all out.”

Finkelstein isn’t the only one calling Castilla out for ruthless and vindictive abuse of power.

Award-winning North Miami Beach Officer Ericson Harrell — who made headlines after refusing to remove an Anonymous’ Guy Fawkes mask during a protest several years ago — was appalled at Castilla’s infractions, and after viewing the news report, took to social media to express those grievances.

On Facebook, Harrell wrote,

“I just watched a news report of a ‘hero’ School Board cop stopped a lady because she yelled at him because the COP was creating a traffic jam. He then pulled her over because he couldn’t see the ‘Florida’ label at the top of her tag. He then proceeded to write the hard working mom 4 tickets to include one for ‘Fleeing and Eluding’ (felony)!!! People don’t hate cops or think ACAB for no reason. It’s actions of this officer which turns someone from a bootlicker to a cop hater over night.

“‘Whenever a discretionary power is lodged in any set of man / woman over the property (Rights) of their neighbors, they will abuse it.’”

With tensions between law enforcement and civilians at an arguably all-time high, Harrell’s explanation indeed explains common sentiment — law-abiding individuals who would frequently rush to side with the Boys In Blue will change their tune the moment a feckless cop uses his gun and badge as personal weapons.

Castilla, as many commenters to Harrell’s post pointed out, indisputably knew his malicious and retaliatory actions would not hold up in court, but he issued the citations and attempted to create a felon out of Hernandez just to be cruel — if not to warn her against their having future interactions.

If he’ll go off the rails toward her once, any additional encounters between Hernandez and the vengeful Castilla could only be worse.

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“I felt violated. I felt victimized,” Hernandez told 7News. “It’s clear to see that he did it in retaliation.”

Worse, she told the station the school’s principal chillingly informed her he wasn’t pleased she spoke to 7News about the school cop’s role in the incident — so she now fears retaliation from two fronts.

In the end, the young mother who had done nothing violent, dangerous, or infringing to another person’s rights — and had never had legal issues — has come to the same conclusion countless otherwise innocent targets of police figured out following similar or worse interactions with law enforcement.

Police like Castilla aren’t doing their jobs, as Hernandez notes, instead,

“What you’re doing is really not protecting and serving. You are just protecting and serving yourself because someone caught you doing something wrong.”

Ohio Accidentally Legalized Running Red Lights, State Doesn’t Turn Into Chaos

Ohio — A bill signed into law this week gives Ohio drivers the green light — to run red lights — seriously.

When a traffic light turns red, you’re obligated to stop your vehicle and wait until it turns green again — unless you live in Ohio, where, this week, running red lights was legalized.

Sufficiently sloppy language in a new law intended to allow bicyclists to treat red lights as stop signs actually permits motorists — at least for the time being — to run a red light in certain situations, and not be ticketed by police.

Because bikes and other light means of transportation do not alert traffic signal weight sensors used at many lights in Ohio, lawmakers sought to permit those who would ordinarily be forced to wait indefinitely to run a red light when safe to do so — but the law accidentally also makes the same provision available for motorists.

“House Bill 154 was introduced in order for riders who believe they have been undetected by the sensors to cross an intersection at their best judgment, much like a stop sign,” RT explains.

“What this bill was designed to do was, in that situation, is allow the bicyclist to make a decision that it’s clear to proceed and go ahead and move through the red light,” Ohio State Patrol Lt. Robert Sellers told Columbus NBC affiliate WCMH-TV.

Sellers advised the legal permission slip to run red lights won’t be around for long — politicians are working to correct the language to specify bicycles with new legislation — so motorists, although legally allowed not to, should treat red lights as they always have.

In the interim, there is a bit of a catch — because legislators intended to compensate for broken traffic lights, motorists caught by police running a red must prove in a court of law the signal was malfunctioning.

“They’ve left a little wiggle room in this,” attorney Steve Palmer told WCMH-TV. “You could argue that the detector wasn’t working or you didn’t think it was working and you could honestly believe that in good faith and comply with this law without stopping at a red light.”

But drivers can still be cited — despite the lax nature of the ostensively impermanent law — particularly for gunning it through a red light, if doing so results in an accident, if the action is otherwise unsafe, or if it cannot be proven the signal was broken.

“Just because there’s this law written, presumably to protect bicyclists, I don’t think that gives any of us the green light, so to speak, to run the red light,” Palmer continued.

While many Ohioans likely welcome the new provision, law enforcement hasn’t exactly cozied to the idea due to concern for driver, cyclist, and pedestrian safety — and confusion over when to issue citations.

Columbus Police Sgt. Nick Konves warned legislators in February the law “makes enforcement and prosecution very difficult and nearly impossible,” reports the Norwalk Reflector.

Where Ohio’s new law flirts with the arbitrariness of traffic regulation, some European cities have altogether done away with traffic lights, signs, lines, curbs, and rules in a radical attempt to make the streets safer for everyone and reduce the number of accidents.

And it worked.

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Called ‘shared space,’ this open city plan would seem counterintuitive to Americans, but the fascinating concept instead fosters caution through, essentially, disorientation. Drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, buses — anyone using the undefined space has to watch for everyone else.

Rather than the pandemonium portrayed in grainy film from the early days of motor vehicles, the shared space concept forces safety and caution by default.

CNN reported years ago the “town of Drachten in the Netherlands was one of the first to experiment the concept in 2002 by removing nearly all traffic signals with the aim of reducing accidents and improving both the town’s quality and popularity. Despite increases in traffic volumes, accident numbers fell from 8.3 per year between 1994 and 2002 to an average of just one per year in 2005.”

In 2008, the German town of Bohmte followed suit, and — where the town had once experienced serious vehicle accidents weekly — in the first four weeks, not a single crash was recorded. In Bohmte, the Daily Mail reported at the time,

“Only two rules remain — drivers cannot go above 30 mph, the German speed limit for city driving, and everyone has to yield to the right, regardless of whether it is a car, a bike or a mother with a pushchair.”

Perhaps Ohio — rather than appending its red light law — should instead consider relegating its traffic lights to the dust bin.

76-Year-Old Woman Fined $200 for Not Shoveling Snow Fast Enough – Fights Back

Boston, MA — A 76-year-old woman must pay $200 for the oh-so-serious transgression of not shoveling snow fast enough for the whims of the City of Boston.

“I don’t think it was fair because it was icy and it was difficult to get up,” South Boston resident Lorraine Walsh told a local CBS News affiliate.

Walsh did, in fact, attempt to remove the snow from the sidewalk in front of her residence — even going so far as to apply an ice melter on areas she was unable to clear — but subfreezing temperatures and unforgiving winds soon forced her to retreat.

“Really windy if you remember,” the elderly woman, who incidentally says she enjoys shoveling, continued. “Fifty-five miles an hour all the next day.”

But the city does not want to hear excuses — Boston expects residents and businesses to shovel snow, or hire someone else to do it, within a short time frame following a major storm.

“The rules are, three hours after a snowstorm we’re asking residents to shovel their sidewalks and businesses to shovel their sidewalks and if you can’t shovel it, get somebody to shovel it for you,” Boston Mayor Marty Walsh — no relation to Lorraine — flatly stated.

While the city’s policy indeed pertains to safety concerns, the mayor did not offer an explanation for the obvious personal safety concerns the elderly face shoveling snow amid treacherous winter conditions.

Worse, though a resident would normally be fined a still-outrageous $50 for failure to clear snow, Walsh garnered a business fine of $200 because her family runs a small insurance business from the home.

More than 500 Boston residents and businesses were fined last week for failing to meet the city’s strict ordinances regarding snow removal — and city officials aren’t the least bit apologetic for doling out those fines.

Chief of Streets Chris Osgood, responsible for overseeing the effort to keep streets and sidewalks clear of snow and ice, says city workers are “constantly encouraging neighbors to help neighbors” ensure each other’s snow is removed to the satisfaction of the ordinances.

“The last thing we want to do is penalize people and write fines,” the mayor continued, ignoring that officials wrote hundreds of tickets last week and suggesting Walsh could file an appeal, “but if we don’t, we won’t have people shoveling sidewalks and we’ll have situations where people can’t get passed [sic] on the sidewalk.”

Walsh affirmed she will fight the ridiculous $200 charge, saying, “I do intend to call and I will write an appeal letter. We’ve never had a ticket like this before so I don’t know how strict they are with it, and whether I have a chance of appealing it or not, but I hope.”

Cities in colder climes around the country frequently ticket or fine residents for issues in the aftermath of winter storms, including failure to clear snow quickly enough and parking on routes officials need to plow. And while they all cite safety concerns as the impetus for restrictive rules, the factor of easy additional revenue generation shouldn’t be ignored.

But the mayor and chief of streets — as well as Boston’s ordinances — fail the sniff test against the reality of blizzards.

As a coastal city, Boston faces high snowfall totals each winter — but the flakes are nothing compared to often blustery, frigid winds. While these conditions would be uncomfortable but endurable for an average, healthy person to shovel snow, the elderly and infirm would face very real dangers from exposure.

Making the assumption a resident would be able to convince a neighbor to assist with clearing snow is a stretch — particularly in a big city — as is the inference an average person would have additional funds to hire a stranger or company to do so.

Where the City of Boston and officials appear cooly rigid on the topic of authoritarian snow removal policies, Walsh wisely proffered some reasonable adjustments to passing out stiff penalties, asserting,

“Give us a little flexibility. Consider a warning. We realize it was windy and there were ice problems so we’re going to give you an extra day, that type of thing. That would be fair, wouldn’t it?”

Couple Forced to Destroy 40yo Pond on Their Own Property Because Govt Owns the Rainwater

Butte Falls, OR — An Oregon couple has been told they must destroy a 2-acre pond on their land — the property’s most attractive feature — because the government said so.

Although Jon and Sabrina Carey purchased the 10-acre property near Butte Falls two and a half years ago, the pond has been in place for 40 years — but that fact doesn’t matter to the Jackson County Watermaster’s Office.

“I basically bought a lemon,” said Jon, who became teary-eyed at the edge of the partially ice-covered body of water being targeted by government, in an interview with the Mail Tribune. “That’s how they explained it to me.”

But the couple desperately wants to keep the stunning longstanding feature in tact, so, as the Mail Tribune reports, the Careys have “pleaded with the Medford Water Commission to adopt the pond and treat it as a municipal water source, something Jackson County Watermaster Larry Menteer has opposed because of the precedent it would set.

“The Water Commission has rights to the watershed around the Careys’ property, where dozens, if not hundreds, of ponds are located, as well as Medford’s primary source of water, Big Butte Springs.”

And the Careys aren’t the only people in the watershed who’ve had difficulties with, well, ‘the government’s’ water.

Eagle Point resident Gary Harrington spent 90 days in jail for illegally harboring some 13 million gallons of illicit rainwater — that’s enough rain to fill around 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Harrington masterfully crafted several ponds on his property — even building docks for one, and stocking it with largemouth bass — but his insistence the water would assist in fire control and prevention didn’t satisfy the government, since a “1925 state law dictates that the water belongs to the Medford Water Commission.”

As Mother Nature Network’s Matt Hickman reported in 2012,

“The bigger story here is that rainwater collection is indeed kosher in Oregon, provided that you’re capturing it from an artificial, impervious surface such as a rooftop with the assistance of rainwater barrels. But an extensive reservoir set-up complete with 10- and 20-foot-tall dams is verboten without the proper, state-issued water-right permits — after all, Oregon law dictates that water is a publicly owned resource — and Harrington did not possess said permits.”

Harrington and the Oregon Water Resources Department waged an extended battle over the ponds, and at one point, it was ruled he would be allowed to keep everything in place — but that decision was backtracked in less than one year.

Ultimately, “Rain Man,” as he came to be called, found himself charged with nine misdemeanors, spent three months behind bars, and had to shell out $1,500 in fines — and was ordered to destroy the dams and drain all the ponds.

Harrington’s case might have been infinitely more complex than the Careys’ — considering the large volume of water and infrastructure he’d put in place — but they share the same theme of overbearing government and arguably wholly unnecessary law versus the right of people to do as they please with their property.

“When you’re honest, they take everything away from you,” said Sabrina Carey, who inspected country records — which plainly showed the pond — before they purchased the property.

Going by the book might have been the ‘fatal’ error for the couple, however, since the county didn’t take issue with the pond until Jon sought to grow legal medical cannabis on the land and had to prove there was a viable source of water for the grow operation.

According to the Watermaster’s Office, the previous owners had not received a permit for the pond, so the Careys were now in violation of Oregon regulations — and they would have to shoulder the cost of draining the water.

In an effort to prove the pond is legitimate and persuade county government to allow it to remain on the property, the couple stopped using it — even though the well on their land had run dry — and began shipping in the water for daily living and gardening from nearly Butte Falls.

They’ve also had no choice but to hire attorney Sarah Liljefelt, who filed a request with Jackson County to provide a permit for them to store water, stating, “The reservoir on Ms. Carey’s property, though small, is one of the largest in the area.”

As the Mail Tribune notes, “Liljefelt said the pond is an important source of water for beavers, otters, elk, deer, bear, mountain lion, bobcat, bald eagle osprey, great blue heron, snowy egret, Canada geese and the western pond turtle.”

By all appearances, the large pool of water does more good for the environment than if it weren’t there at all — during their fight with the State, the Careys even suggested it be used for fire control and prevention, like Harrington did, as the pond is easily accessible by fire crews.

But the county has displayed only nonsensical obstinance on the issue.

“This pond seems to be doing way more public good than not being here. Why, now, is it so important to be removed?” Jon lamented.

Indeed, the 40-year-old man doesn’t even profit from the medical cannabis grown on the land he and his wife own, as he literally gives the crop — free of charge — to friends.

“I don’t make anything out of this,” he said.

Members of the Water Commission disagree on whether this is an issue worth fighting over at all, but as the Mail Tribune reports,

“Water Commission staff found several problems with the Careys’ request, including setting a precedent that could prompt similar requests and weaken state statutes while not meeting the definition of ‘municipal water source.’ The staff found it would be very difficult to access the water stored in the pond for municipal reasons, and further monitoring and following up on compliance issues would be difficult and costly for the commission.”

However, the commission also failed to state why this should be a matter for the government in the first place — why punitive bureaucracy needs to meddle with a pond on private property, serving as a valuable ecosystem, that poses no threat to anyone or anything, and isn’t even an eyesore, must be destroyed.

Besides a trailer home and dilapidated house, the pond is the only thing of value on their acreage, and, obviously, as Sabrina said, “We didn’t buy it for the double-wide.”

She told the Mail Tribune the pond should have been registered with the Oregon Water Resources Department nine years ago, but the owners at that time did not reside on the property and didn’t do so.

They have even offered to reduce the pond’s size, allow officials to inspect it when necessary, and have provided a draft easement to the commission in hopes of allowing the prized water feature to remain intact — thus far to no avail.

“We’re just trying to do it by the rules,” Sabrina explained. “I’m trying to cooperate.”

In 2012, Gary Harrington had already been through years of conflict with government officials over illicit water — and provided CNSNews with stronger sentiment on the topic:

“When something is wrong, you just, as an American citizen, you have to put your foot down and say, ‘This is wrong; you just can’t take away anymore of my rights and from here on in, I’m going to fight it.”

That government feels entitled to not only something located on private property, but that people should not be allowed to collect rain, is everything wrong with excessive government — and the overregulation of daily life.

What Walking Around a Blocked Sidewalk Looks Like in a Police State — This is Why People are Angry

Edina, MN — Larnie B. Thomas didn’t do anything ‘wrong,’ per se — but that, unsurprisingly, did not prevent a typically ugly interaction with police intent to enforce one of thousands of needless laws governing daily life.

Edina, Minnesota, police felt construction blocking the sidewalk did not constitute sufficient reason for Thomas to enter the roadway, even though he hugged the right shoulder’s white line — so a plain-clothed officer paid with taxpayer dollars halted his forward progress to harass and then arrest the man for attempting forward progress.

Janet Rowles stopped her vehicle and watched the incident unfold along Xerxes Avenue and — as has become a necessity in the American police state — whipped out her cell phone to tape the unnecessary confrontation.

Lt. T.F. Olson, identified later, grabbed the back of Thomas’ jacket and then escorted the man back toward his waiting, unmarked SUV.

“Come over here,” the white officer in an oxford shirt and khakis tells the man whose elbow he grasped.

“For what?!” Thomas replies, understandably angry at having been accosted for essentially no reason.

Rowles emphasized she began taping, not because she has a general issue with U.S. policing, but because she took issue with Olson’s needless harassment of Thomas.

“I’m not against the police,” she said in an interview Friday, quoted by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “I was against what he was doing.”

In the now-viral video, Thomas becomes increasingly irate at the pointless harassment by police — and, as many have noted, likely had luck on his side to ultimately walk away without being brutalized senselessly by either Olson or additional responding officers.

As a professional mediator, Rowles pulled over to film the confrontation — during which Thomas stayed calm but became increasingly agitated — because, as the Tribune cited her saying, she “was watching something that I didn’t think was very fair.”

“You can’t just put your hands on me like that,” Thomas implores the officer as he’s escorted to the waiting stealth SUV.

Olson explains the man had, however, made the altogether egregious error of “walking down the middle of the street.”

Incensed at having been hijacked for stepping outside the State’s arbitrary lines in the road, Thomas slams his backpack to the ground and asks the surprisingly calm officer if he’ll be taken to jail.

“You’re gonna take me to jail for that shit?!” Thomas demands.

Rowles, filming close by — and as a mediator familiar with difficult situations — tells Olson, “Maybe you could just tell him where a good place to walk is.”

As the confrontation continues, Thomas’ fury intensifies, and — although he struggles from Olson’s firm grip several times — neither the white officer nor the justifiably enraged black man become violent.

“I don’t fault him for being agitated,” Rowles later explained. “I’m a mediator, and I see people all the time be upset in ways that aren’t very pretty. We’re human. It’s the job of the police to deal with it in a good manner, not the [one] who is being falsely accused.”

Clearly, the police in this incident needlessly apprehended Thomas as he tried to avoid a blocked pathway — and was not, as Olson implied, ‘walking down the middle of the road.’

“Maybe you could just suggest he go to the other side and help him,” Rowles tells Olson in an apparently fruitless attempt to mitigate the situation. “Maybe you could just help him know where the right place to walk is.”

“Ma’am. Could you please step back,” the officer tells her, ignoring her sensible suggestion.

While Rowles’ intentions as a mediator naturally included the instinct to alleviate escalation, it would normally be inadvisable to interact with either party when filming a police encounter.

Olson continues his somewhat demeaning grip on Thomas’ jacket, refusing to be reasonable about the altogether marginal infraction.

“I know my rights,” Thomas implores, “I didn’t do nothing. You got your hand on me.”

As the man explains to the officer he had to tread into the roadway due to the construction blocking his path, Olson says, “We’ve gone beyond that.”

“No we haven’t,” Thomas exclaims. “That’s bullshit and you know it!”

“Why are you being this way?” the authoritarian officer, ignorant of the inanity of his harassment, rhetorically asks the man.

“Because … look … the fuck you got your hands on me for?!”

This exchange continues for several minutes as the level-headed cop repeatedly tells the justifiably outraged man why stepping outside the arbitrary lines constitutes a grievous error, until, eventually, a backup officer is summoned to the scene.

Thomas, at one point, tires of Olson’s disrespectful grasp on his jacket, and wriggles free of both it and his shirt.

Eventually, Olson arrests Thomas, cuffing him shirtless in the frigid Minnesota air. Several times, Rowles asks the officers to give the obviously freezing Thomas his jacket — but they refuse, saying he’ll soon be in the back of a patrol car.

Rowles’ video of the absurd confrontation, which occurred on Wednesday, has been viewed nearly 100,000 times — forcing the Edina Police Department to issue a statement, saying,

“Recognizing the risk to the safety of the public, the officer pulled in behind the man with his lights and an audible signal in an attempt to advise him to get out of the roadway. The man, who was wearing headphones, turned and looked at the officer and continued walking in the lane of traffic.”

This, of course, ignores that Thomas posed no legitimate threat to the public, since vehicles passing by would clearly see him and be able to move slightly to the left to give him safe passage. Continues the statement:

“The officer smelled alcohol on the man’s breath during the incident. A breathalyzer later confirmed the presence of alcohol” — as if imbibing and walking were somehow a crime.

Rowles explained later she felt her occupation demanded she advocate for Thomas during his ridiculous encounter with the cops, and that — had she not been filming their actions — the situation could have worsened in potentially dangerous ways.

Thomas was cited for “disorderly conduct and pedestrian failure to obey a traffic signal,” and was later released.

“I worry about these relationships that [the police are] destroying,” she said, according to the Tribune. “It calls for extra patience.”

Tragically, police patience with the public seems — with this and few other exceptions — to be a thing of the past.